Help get me out of a jam!?

[Incarnadine]

So here's my situation:

 

Current game, over 240 hours played. Loving it for the most part. Finally decided to create turret factories for the First Time Ever in sector -2,2.

I got so wrapped up in checking the numbers and making new turret factories that I didn't turn them into stations - they stayed as the little starter ships I'd made. I had 10 in the sector and I was getting ready to make some turrets when pirates finally spawned and killed 3 stations. Disaster!

 

Here's where it went from bad to worse. I decided to try restoring my save game from a backup. Guess what's in the sector now along with my turret factories? Five hostile Xsotan. Much worse!

 

I've spent the better part of 6 hours trying various workarounds to save my turret factories. I've tried to super quickly change the difficulty to beginner just as the game loads, but I still can't save all the factories because I can't use /destroy to get all 5 Xsotan quick enough. The sector file that has the XML lists 5 ship UUIDs, which I'm guessing are the Xsotan.  I've tried saving the game just as it loads but before any stations are destroyed, and then editing the sector file to remove the Xsotan - no luck there.

 

My current thinking is to run a Lua script at the command line as soon as the game loads to destroy the Xsotan. However, I don't know how to create a Lua script that would do that. If this is the wrong place to discuss this, I apologize. I'm just trying to fix my screwup and I could really use some help. Thanks for any answers and help anyone can provide!

[SneakyTacts]

I don’t know how to stop the Xsotan before your stations are destroyed, but would you like to use a command to cheat in replacement resources?

Here it is, if you think it’s fair:

 

/give playerName amount creditsOrResource

/give realslimshady 100000 credits

/give koonschi 3 naonite

-I’m not sure if it’s case sensitive.

-Don’t give yourself more than you deserve!

 

 

Don’t get too caught up in your disastrous sector, lol. Don’t forget to have fun.

[Ravien]

Try pausing the game. I don't know if you can use console commands when the game is paused or not.

[Jester]

There is an in-game suppressor of some sort ... I forget what it is called, but costs around 100k.

 

On use, eliminates pesky Zsotan and Pirates for several hours, I think.

[FuryoftheStars]

I know it's too late/doesn't help in this situation, but for future reference, do not use backups unless you have a corrupted save.  They are not saves in and of themselves.  Using one resets the whole galaxy to default and then drops you with your ships/stations/resources you had previously back into it.